II.

THE CAUSES OF THE WAR DATE FAR BACK. THE FAULTS OF ENGLAND TO BE SOUGHT IN
THE PAST. A REVISED VERDICT NEEDED. DOWNING STREET GOVERNMENT AND SUCCESSIVE
COLONIAL GOVERNORS. M. MABILLE AND M. DIETERLEN, FRENCH MISSIONARIES. EARLY
HISTORY OF CAPE COLONY. ABOLITION OF SLAVERY BY GREAT BRITAIN. COMPENSATION
TO SLAVE OWNERS. FIRST TREK OF THE BURGHERS.

THERE is nothing so fallacious or misleading in history as the popular
tendency to trace the causes of a great war to one source alone, or to fix upon
the most recent events leading up to it, as the principal or even the sole cause
of the outbreak of war. The occasion of an event may not be, and often is not,
the cause of it. The occasion of this war was not its cause. In the present case
it is extraordinary to note how almost the whole of Europe appears to be carried
away with the idea that the causes of this terrible South African war are, as it
were, only of yesterday’s date. The seeds of which we are reaping so woeful a
harvest were not sown yesterday, nor a few years ago only. We are reaping a
harvest which has been ripening for a century past.

At the time of the Indian Mutiny, it was given out and believed by the world in
general that the cause of that hideous revolt was a supposed attempt on the part
of England to impose
page: 20 upon the native army of
India certain rules which, from their point of view, outraged their religion in
some of its most sacred aspects; (I refer to the legend of the greased
cartridges). After the mutiny was over, Sir Herbert Edwardes, a true Seer, whose
insight enabled him to look far below the surface, and to go back many years
into the history or our dealings with India in order to take in review all the
causes of the rebellion, addressed an exhaustive report to the British
Government at home, dealing with those causes which had been accumulating for
half‐a‐century or more. This was a weighty document,—one which it would be worth
while to re‐peruse at the present day; it had its influence in leading the Home
Government to acknowledge some grave errors which had led up to this
catastrophe, and to make an honest and persevering attempt to remedy past evils.
That this attempt has not been in vain, in spite of all that India has had to
suffer, has been acknowledged gratefully by the Native delegates to the great
Annual Congress in India of the past year.

In the case of the Indian Mutiny, the incident of the supposed insult to their
religious feelings was only the match which set light to a train which had been
long laid. In the same way the honest historian will find, in the present case,
that the events—the “tragedy of errors,” as they have been called,—of recent
date, are but the torch that has set fire to a long prepared mass of combustible
material which had been gradually accumulating in the course of a century.

In order to arrive at a true estimate of the errors and mismanagement which lie
at the root of the causes of the present war, it is necessary to look back.
Those errors and wrongs must be patiently searched out and studied, without
partisanship, with an open mind and serious purpose. Many of our busy
politicians and others have not the time, some perhaps have not the
page: 21 inclination for any such study. Hence, hasty,
shallow, and violent judgments.

Never has there occurred in history a great struggle such as the present which
has not had a deep moral teaching.

England is now suffering for her past errors, extending over many years. The
blood of her sons is being poured out like water on the soil of South Africa.
Wounded hearts and desolated families at home are counted by tens of
thousands.

But it needs to be courageously stated by those who have looked a little below
the surface that her faults have not been those which are attributed to her by a
large proportion of European countries, and by a portion of her own people.
These appear to attribute this war to a sudden impulse on her part of Imperial
ambition and greed, and to see in the attitude which they attribute to her
alone, the provocative element which was chiefly supplied from the other side.
There will have to be a Revision of this Verdict, and there will certainly be
one; it is on the way, though its approach may be slow. It will be rejected by
some to the last.

The great error of England appears to have been a strange neglect, from time to
time, of the true interests of her South African subjects, English, Dutch, and
Natives. There have been in her management of this great Colony alternations of
apathy and inaction, with interference which was sometimes unwise and hasty.
Some of her acts have been the result of ignorance, indifference, or
superciliousness on the part of our rulers.

The special difficulties, however, in her position towards that Colony should be
taken into account.

It has always been a question as to how far interference from Downing Street with
the freedom of action of a Self‐Governing
page: 22
Colony was wise or practicable. In other instances, the exercise of great
freedom of colonial self‐government has had happy results, as in Canada and
Australia.

Far from our South African policy having represented, as is believed by some, the
self‐assertion of a proud Imperialism, it has been the very opposite.

It seems evident that some of the greatest evils in the British government of
South Africa have arisen from the frequent changes of Governors and
Administrators there, concurrently with changes in the Government at
home. There have been Governors under whose influence and control all
sections of the people, including the natives, have had a measure of peace and
good government. Such a Governor was Sir George Grey, of whose far‐seeing
provisions for the welfare of all classes many effects last to this day.

The nature of the work undertaken, and to a great extent done, by Sir George Grey
and those of his successors who followed his example, was concisely described by
an able local historian in 1877:—“The aim of the Colonial Government since
1855,” he said, “has been to establish and maintain peace, to diffuse
civilization and Christianity, and to establish society on the basis of
individual property and personal industry. The agencies employed are the
magistrate, the missionary, the schoolmaster, and the trader.” Of the years
dating from the commencement of Sir Geroge Grey’s administration, it was thus
reported:—“During this time peace has been uninterruptedly enjoyed within
British frontiers. The natives have been treated in all respects with justice
and consideration. Large tracts of the richest land are expressly set apart for
them under the name of ‘reserves’ and ‘locations.’ The greater part of them live
in these locations, under the superintendence of European magistrates
page: 23 or missionaries. As a whole, they are now enjoying
far greater comfort and prosperity than they ever did in their normal state of
barbaric independence and perpetually recurring tribal wars, before coming into
contact with Europeans. The advantages and value of British rule have of late
years struck root in the native mind over an immense portion of South Africa.
They believe that it is a protection from external encroachment, and that only
under the ægis of the Government can they be
secure and enjoy peace and prosperity. Influenced by this feeling, several
tribes beyond the colonial boundaries are now eager to be brought within the
pale of civilized authority, and ere long, it is hoped, Her Majesty’s
sovereignty will be extended over fresh territories, with the full and free
consent of the chiefs and tribes inhabiting them.”*

It may be of interest to note here that one of these territories was Basutoland,
which lies close to the South Eastern border of the Orange Free State.

Between the Basutos and the Orange Free State Boers war broke out in 1856, to be
followed in 1858 by a temporary and incomplete pacification. The struggle
continued, and in 1861, and again in 1865, when war was resumed, and all
Basutoland was in danger of being conquered by the Boers. Moshesh, their Chief,
appealed to the British Government for protection. It was not till 1868, after a
large part of the country had passed into Boer hands, that Sir Philip Wodehouse,
Sir George Grey’s successor, was allowed to issue a proclamation declaring so
much as remained of Basutoland to be British territory.

It was Sir George Grey who first saw the importance of endeavouring to bring all
portions of South Africa, including the Boer Republics and the Native States,
into “federal union with

* South Africa, Past and Present (1899) by Noble.

page: 24 the parent colony” at the Cape. He was
commissioned by the British Government to make enquiries with this object
(1858.) He obtained the support of the Orange Free State, whose Volksraad
resolved that “a union with the Cape Colony, either on the plan of federation or
otherwise, is desirable,” and was expecting to win over the Transvaal Boers,
when the British Government, alarmed as to the responsibilities it might incur,
vetoed the project. (Such sudden alarms, under the influence of party conflicts
at home, have not been infrequent.)

For seven years, however, this good Governor was permitted to promote a work of
pacification and union.

I shall refer again later to the misfortunes, even the calamities, which have
been the result of our projecting our home system of Government by
Party into the distant regions of South Africa. There are long proved
advantages in that system of party government as existing for our own country,
but it seems to have been at the root of much of the inconsistency and
vacillation of our policy in South Africa. As soon as a good Governor (appointed
by either political party) has begun to develop his methods, and to lead the
Dutch, and English, and Natives alike to begin to believe that there is
something homogeneous in the principles of British government, a General
Election takes place in England. A new Parliament and a new Government come into
power, and, frequently in obedience to some popular representations at home, the
actual Colonial Governor is recalled, and another is sent out.

Lord Glenelg, for example, had held office as Governor of the Cape Colony for
five years,—up to 1846. His policy had been, it is said, conciliatory and wise.
But immediately on a change of party in the Government at home, he was recalled,
and Sir Harry Smith superseded him, a recklessly aggressive person.

page: 25

It was only by great pains and trouble that the succeeding Governor, Sir George
Cathcart, a wiser man, brought about a settlement of the confusion and disputes
arising from Sir Harry Smith’s aggressive and violent methods.

And so it has gone on, through all the years.

Allusion having been made above to the assumption of the Protectorate of
Basutoland by Great Britain, it will not be without interest to notice here the
circumstances and the motives which led to that act. It will be seen that there
was no aggressiveness nor desire of conquest in this case; but that the
protection asked was but too tardily granted on the pathetic and reiterated
prayer of the natives suffering from the aggressions of the Transvaal.

The following is from the Biography of Adolphe Mabille, a devoted missionary of
the Société des Missions Evangéliques of Paris, who worked with
great success in Basutoland. His life is written by Mr. Dieterlen (a name well
known and highly esteemed in France), and the book has a preface by the famous
missionary, Mr. F. Coillard.*

“The Boers had long been keeping up an aggressive war against the Basutos (1864
to 1869), so much so that Mr. Mabille’s missionary work was for a time almost
destroyed. The Boers thought they saw in the missionaries’ work the secret of
the steady resistance of the Basutos, and of the moral force which prevented
them laying down their arms. They exacted that Mr. Mabille should leave the
country at once, which theoretically, they said, belonged to them.

“This good missionary and his friends were subjected to long trials during this
hostility of the Boers. Moshesh, the chief of the Basutos, had for a long time
past been asking the Governor

* Adolphe Mabille, Published in Paris, 1898.

page: 26 of Cape Colony to have him and his people
placed under the direction of Great Britain. The reply from the Cape was very
long delayed. Moshesh, worn out, was about to capitulate at last to the Boers.
Lessuto (the territory of Basutoland) was on the point of being absorbed by the
Transvaal. At the last moment, however, and not a day too soon, there came a
letter from the Governor of the Cape announcing to Moshesh, that Queen Victoria
had consented to take the Basutos under her protection. It was the long‐expected
deliverance,—it was salvation! At this news the missionaries, with Moshesh,
burst into tears, and falling on their knees, gave thanks to God for this
providential and almost unexpected intervention.”

The Boers retained a large and fertile tract of Lessuto, but the rest of the
country, continues M. Dieterlen, “remained under the Protectorate of a people
who, provided peace is maintained, and their commerce is not interfered with,
know how to work for the right development of the native people whose lands they
annex.”

Mr. Dieterlen introduces into his narrative the following remarks,—which are
interesting as coming, not from an Englishman, but from a Frenchman,—and one who
has had close personal experience of the matters of which he speaks:—

“Stayers at home, as we Frenchmen are, forming our opinions from newspapers whose
editors know no more than ourselves what goes on in foreign countries, we too
willingly see in the British nation an egotistical and rapacious people,
thinking of nothing but the extension of their commerce and the prosperity of
their industry. We are apt to pretend that their philanthropic enterprises and
religious works are a mere hypocrisy. Courage is absolutely needed in order to
affirm, at the risk of exciting the indignation of our soi‐disant patriots, that although England knows
page: 27 perfectly well how to take care of her commercial
interests in her colonies, she knows equally well how to pre‐occupy and occupy
herself with the moral interests of the people whom she places by agreement or
by force under the sceptre of her Queen. Those who have seen and who know, have
the duty of saying to those who have not seen, and who cannot, or who do not
desire to see, and who do not know, that these two currents flowing from the
British nation,—the one commercial and the other philanthropic,—are equally
active amongst the uncivilized nations of Africa, and that if one wishes to find
colonies in which exist real and complete liberty of conscience, where the
education and moralisation of the natives are the object of serious concern,
drawing largely upon the budget of the metropolis, it is always and above all in
English possessions that you must look for them.

“Under the domination of the Boers, Lessuto would have been devoted to
destruction, to ignorance, and to semi‐slavery. Under the English régime reign
security and progress. Lessuto became a territory reserved solely for its native
proprietors, the sale of strong liquors was prohibited, and the schools received
generous subvention. Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, French and English
Missionaries, could then enjoy the most absolute liberty in order to spread,
each one in his own manner, and in the measure in which he possessed it,
evangelic truth.

“It is for this reason that the French missionaries feared to see the Basutos
fall under the Boers’ yoke, and that they hailed with joy the intervention of
the English Government in their field of work, hoping and expecting for the
missionary work the happiest fruits. Their hope has not been deceived by the
results.”

The clash of opposing principles, and even the violence of party feeling
continued to send its echoes to the far regions of
page: 28 South Africa, confusing the minds of the various
populations there, and preventing any real coherence and continuity in our
Government of that great Colony. A good and successful Administrator has
sometimes been withdrawn to be superseded by another, equally well‐intentioned,
perhaps, but whose policy was on wholly different lines, thus undoing the work
of his predecessor. This has introduced not only confusion, but sometimes an
appearance of real injustice into our management of the colony. In all this
chequered history, the interests of the native races have been too often
postponed to those of the ruling races. This was certainly the case in connexion
with Mr. Galdstone’s well‐intentioned act in giving back to the Transvaal its
independent government.

It has been an anxious question for many among us whether this source of
vacillation, with its attendant misfortunes, is to continue in the future.

The early history of the South African Colony has become, by this time, pretty
will known by means of the numberless books lately written on the subject. I
will only briefly recapitulate here a few of the principal facts, these being,
in part derived from the annals and reports of the Aborigines Protection
Society, which may be considered impartial, seeing that that Society has had a
keen eye at all times for the faults of British colonists and the British
Government, while constrained, as a truthful recorder, to publish the offences
of other peoples and Governments. I have also constantly referred to
Parliamentary papers, and the words of accredited historians and travellers.

The first attempt at a regular settlement by the Dutch at the Cape was made by
Jan Van Riebeck, in 1652, for the convenience of the trading vessels of the
Netherlands East India
page: 29 Company, passing from
Europe to Asia. Almost from the first these colonists were involved in quarrels
with the natives, which furnished excuse for appropriating their lands and
making slaves of them. The intruders stole the natives’ cattle, and the natives’
efforts to recover their property were denounced by Van Riebeck as “a matter
most displeasing to the Almighty, when committed by such as they.” Apologising
to his employers in Holland for his show of kindness to one group of natives,
Van Riebeck wrote: “This we only did to make them less shy, so as to find
hereafter a better opportunity to seize them—1,100 or 1,200 in number, and about
600 cattle, the best in the whole country. We have every day the finest
opportunities for effecting this without bloodshed, and could derive good
service from the people, in chains, in killing seals or in
labouring in the silver mines which we trust will be found here.”

The Netherlands Company frequently deprecated such acts of treachery and cruelty,
and counselled moderation. Their protests however were of no avail. The mischief
had been done. The unhappy natives, with whom lasting friendship might have been
established by fair treatment, had been converted into enemies; and the ruthless
punishment inflicted on them for each futile effort to recover some of the
property stolen for them, had rendered inevitable the continuance and constant
extension of the strife all through the five generations of Dutch rule, and
furnished cogent precedent for like action afterwards.*

After 1652, Colonists of the baser sort kept arriving in cargoes, and gradually
the Netherlands Company allowed persons not of their own nation to land and
settle under severe fiscal and

* These and other details which follow are taken from Dutch
official papers, giving a succinct account of the treatment of the natives
between 1649 and 1809. These papers were translated from the Dutch by Lieut.
Moodie (1838). See Moodie’s “Record.”

page: 30 other restrictions. Among these were a number of
French Huguenots, good men, driven from their homes by the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes in 1690. Then Flemings, Germans, Poles, and others constantly
swelled the ranks. All these Europeans were forced to submit to the arbitrary
rules of the Netherlands Company’s agents, scarcely at all restrained from
Amsterdam. Unofficial residents, known as Burghers, came to be admitted to a
share in the management of affairs. It was for their benefit chiefly, that as
soon as the Hottentots were found to be unworkable as slaves, Negroes from West
Africa and Malays from the East Indies began to be imported for the purpose. In
1772, when the settlement was a hundred and twenty years old, and had been in
what was considered working order for a century, Cape Town and its suburbs had a
population of 1,963 officials and servants of the Company, 4,628 male and 3,750
female colonists, and 8,335 slaves. In these figures no account is taken of the
Hottentots and others employed in menial capacities, nor of the black prisoners,
among whom, in 1772, a Swedish traveller saw 950 men, women, and children of the
Bushman race, who had been captured about a hundred and fifty miles form Cape
Town in a war brought about by encroachment on their lands.†

The Aborigines Protection Society endorses the following statement of Sparrman
(visit to the Cape of Good Hope, 1786, Vol. II, p. 165,) who says, “The Slave
business, that violent outrage against the natural rights of man, which is
always a crime and leads to all manner of wickedness, is exercised by the
Colonists with a cruelty that merits the abhorrence of everyone, though I have
been told that they pique themselves upon it; and not only is the capture of the
Hottentots considered by them merely as a

† Thunberg “Travels in Europe, Africa, and
Asia, between 1770 and 1779.”

page: 31 party
of pleasure, but in cold blood they destroy the bands which nature has knit
between husband and wife, and between parents and their children. Does a
Colonist at any time get sight of a Bushman, he takes fire immediately, and
spirits up his horse and dogs, in order to hunt him with more ardour and fury
than he would a wolf or any other wild beast.”

“I am far from accusing all the colonists,” he continues, “of these cruelties,
which are too frequently committed. While some of them plumed themselves upon
them, there were many who, on the contrary, held them in abomination, and feared
lest the vengeance of Heaven should, for all their crimes, fall upon their
posterity.”

The inability of the Amsterdam authorities to control the filibustering zeal of
the colonists rendered it easy for the people at the Cape to establish among
themselves, in 1793, what purported to be an independent Republic. One of their
proclamations contained the following resolution, aimed especially at the
efforts of the missionaries—most of whom were then Moravians—to save the natives
from utter ruin: “We will not permit any Moravians to live here and instruct the
Hottentots; for, as there are many Christians who receive no instruction, it is
not proper that the Hottentots should be taught; they must remain in the same
state as before. Hottentots born on the estate of a farmer must live there, and
serve him until they are twenty‐five years old, before they receive any wages.
All Bushmen or wild Hottentots caught by us must remain slaves for life.”*

I have given these facts of more than a hundred years ago to show for how long a
time the traditions of the usefulness and lawfulness of Slavery had been
engrained in the minds of the

* Sir John Barrow (Travels in South Africa, 1806.) Vol ii.
p. 165.

page: 32 Dutch settlers. We ought
not, perhaps, to censure too severely the Boer proclivities in favour of that
ancient institution, nor to be surprised if it should be a work of time,
accompanied with severe Providential chastisement, to uproot that fixed idea
from the minds of the present generation, of Boer descent. The sin of enslaving
their fellow‐men may perhaps be reckoned, for them, among the “sins of
ignorance.” Nevertheless, the Recording Angel has not failed through all these
generations to mark the woes of the slaves; and the historic vengeance, which
sooner or later infallibly follows a century or centuries of the violation of
the Divine Law and of human rights, will not be postponed or averted even by a
late repentance on the part of the transgressors. It is striking to note how
often in history the sore judgment of oppressors has fallen (in this world), not
on those who were first in the guilt, but on their successors, just as they were
entering on an amended course of “ceasing to do evil and learning to do
well.”

In 1795, Cape Town was formally ceded by the Prince of Orange to Great Britain,
as an incident of the great war with France, for which, six million pounds
sterling was paid by Great Britain to Holland. British supremacy was formally
recognized in this part of South Africa by a Convention signed in 1814, which
was confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in 1815.

British rule for some thirty years after 1806 was perforce despotic, but for the
most part, with some exceptions, it was a benevolent despotism. “They had the
difficult task of controlling a straggling white community, at first almost
exclusively composed of Boers, who had been too sturdy and stubborn to tolerate
any effective interference by the Netherlands Company and other authorities in
Holland, and who resented both English domination and the advent of English
colonists which more than
page: 33 doubled the white
population in less than two decades.” “The Governors sent out from Downing
Street had tasks imposed upon them which were beyond the powers of even the
wisest and worthiest. Most of the English colonists found it easier to fall in
with the thoughts and habits of the Boers than to uphold the purer traditions of
life and conduct in the mother country, and it is not strange that many of the
officials should have been in like case.”*

Great Britain abolished the Slave Trade in 1807, which prevented the further
importation of Slaves, and the traffic in them.

The great Emancipation Act, by which Great Britain abolished Slavery in all lands
over which she had control, was passed in 1834.

The great grievance for the Burghers was this abolition of slavery by Great
Britain. According to a Parliamentary Return of March, 1838, the slaves of all
sorts liberated in Cape Colony numbered 35,750. The British Parliament awarded
as compensation to the slave owners throughout the British dominions a sum of
£20,000,000, of which, nearly £1,500,000 fell to the share of the Burghers.
Concerning this Act of Compensation there have been very divided opinions; there
is not a doubt that the British Government intended to deal fairly by the former
slave owners, but it is stated that there was great and culpable carelessness on
the part of the British agents in distributing this compensation money. It seems
that many of the Burghers to whom it was due never obtained it, and these
considered themselves aggrieved and defrauded by the British Government. On the
other hand, there are person who have continually

* Mr. Fox Bourne, Secretary of the Aborigines
Protection Society.

page: 34 disapproved of
the principle of compensation for a wrong given up, or the loss of an advantage
unrighteously purchased. It is however to be regretted, that an excuse should
have been given for the Boers’ complaints by irregularities attributed to the
British in the partition of the compensation money.

It has often been asserted that the first great Dutch emigration from the Cape
was instigated simply by love of freedom on their part, and their dislike of
British Government. But why did they dislike British Government? There may have
been minor reasons, but the one great grievance complained of by themselves,
from the first, was the abolition of slavery. They desired to be free to deal
with the natives in their own manner.

Taking with them their household belongings and as much cattle as they could
collect, they went forth in search of homes in which they hoped they would be no
longer controlled, and as they thought, sorely wronged by the nation which had
invaded their Colony. But they did not all trek; only about half, it was
estimated, did so. The rest remained, finding it possible to live and prosper
without slavery.

They crossed the Orange River, and finally trekked beyond the Vaal.

From 1833, Cape Colony, under British rule, began to be endowed with
representative institutions. In 1854, the Magna Charta of the Hottentots, as it
was called, was created. It was a measure of remarkable liberality. “It
conferred on all Hottentots and other free persons of colour lawfully residing
in the Colony, the right to become burghers, and to exercise and enjoy all the
privileges of burghership. It enabled them to acquire land and other property.
It exempted them from any compulsory service to which other subjects of the
Crown were not liable, and from ‘any hindrance, molestation, fine, imprisonment
or other
page: 35 punishment’ not awarded to them after
trial in due course of law, ‘any custom or usage to the contrary in anywise
notwithstanding.’ Among other provisions it was stipulated that wages should no
longer be paid to them in liquor or tobacco, and that, in the event of a servant
having reasonable ground of complaint against his master for ill‐usage, and not
being able to bear the expense of a summons, one should be issued to him free of
charge. By this ordinance a stop was put, as far as the law could be enforced,
to the bondage, other than admitted and legalized slavery, by which through
nearly two centuries the Dutch farmers and others had oppressed the natives whom
they had deprived of their lands.”*

The Boers who had trekked resented every attempt at interference with them on the
part of the Cape Government with a view to their acceptance of such principles
of British Government as are expressed above. Wearied by its hopeless efforts to
restore order among the emigrant farmers, the British Government abandoned the
task, and contented itself with the arrangement made with Andries Pretorius, in
1852, called the Sand River Convention. This Convention conceded to “the
emigrant farmers beyond the Vaal River” “the right to manage their own affairs
and to govern themselves, without any interference on the part of Her Majesty
the Queen’s Government.” It was stipulated, however, that “no slavery is or
shall be permitted or practised in the country to the north of the Vaal River by
the emigrant farmers.” This stipulation has been made in every succeeding
Convention down to that of 1884. These Conventions have been regularly agreed to
and signed by successive Boer Leaders, and have been as regularly and
successively violated.